President Bush has nominated federal appellate Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice O'Conner. A pretty good choice, too. Blogger Keith Burgess-Jackson looks at what kind of battle to expect, and why it's important to fight it.
Sounding like a man who's planning another run for president, John Kerry delivered a speech recently at Georgetown University. It's mostly the same old song and dance from the '04 loser. He's even showing a little bit of the John Kerry we last saw during the campaign.
On the subject of American troop presence in Iraq:
"When they could have listened to General Shinseki and put in enough troops to maintain order, they chose not to. They were wrong."Then later:
"...Our military presence in vast and visible numbers has become part of the problem, not the solution. And our generals understand this. General George Casey, our top military commander in Iraq, recently told Congress that our large military presence 'feeds the notion of occupation'".So which is it? Did we send in too few troops or too many? You can't have it both ways. Oh yeah, it's Kerry. As the Wall Street Journal's Best Of The Web puts it, "Apparently Kerry was for more troops before he was against it."
This story of political correctness run amuck comes from the U.K. Seems British banks are banning piggy banks because they might offend Muslims, who view pigs as unclean animals.
"The next thing we will be banning Christmas trees and cribs and the logical result of that process is a bland uniformity," the Dean of Blackburn, Reverend Christopher Armstrong, said. "We should learn to celebrate our difference, not be fearful of them."
To his credit, one Muslim member of Parliament recognized the nonsense of the ban, saying, "I doubt many Muslims would be seriously offended by piggy banks."
A British researcher says it's possible that people alive today could live 1,000 years or longer. He has a simple, seven step procedure. One of the steps... cure cancer. Sounds simple enough.
A mysterious object found in a Davenport home, which prompted a visit by the local bomb squad, turned out not to be a bomb. Instead, it was a device that was supposed to scare off aliens believed to be living under the ground. The device had been left by a previous homeowner, who got it from a friend of a relative.
About the friend: "He's an astrologer who believes aliens live under the ground... He was a little off his rocker."
Do ya' think?
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department aims without exception to expel all those who enter the United States illegally. It's about time the problem of illegal immigration was addressed this way. Of course, Chertoff saying this and the practice actually being done are two totally different things. The article correctly mentions that this idea lies in sharp contrast to the U.S. policy on illegal Cuban immigrants, which permits those who actually reach U.S. soil to stay in the country. Still, it's a great start if it holds true.
Here's an educated, positive editorial about the Fair Tax, courtesy of yesterday's Gainesville Sun.
Former ABC News anchor Chris Wallace, now host of "FOX News Sunday", discusses in an interview the tremendous amount of anti-President Bush sentiment he's seeing and hearing in the media. He says the questions he hears seem to almost always be slanted against the Bush Administration.
The last couple of days I've spent at the new house, getting unpacked and making the place more homey. I've also been doing a bit of yard work. Now the yard itself is nearly perfect. The previous owners kept it immaculate. Our next door neighbors have already told me that we have "a lot ot live up to" where the yard is concerned. The grass is nice and lush, and in a little less than an hour it can all be cut and edged. The backyard has a nice, young weeping willow which Shannon just loves. She's always wanted one in her yard.
Being out on the back porch, watching the squirrels playing on the fence or in the yard, and things all seem so right. It also helps bring on the feelings of ownership. This is OUR yard. OUR house. Sweet...
In a speech delivered to the The Media Center's We Media conference on October 5, 2005 in New York City, former VP Al Gore expounded on his views of the media's role in public discourse. It's a long, rambling, tiresome speech. I know, what else is new? Some interesting comments, though...
He talked about the "vividness and clarity" with which we (Americans) once talked amongst ourselves over "the problems and choices that we face." He says that "vividness and clarity", long lost, came back for a while in the media's coverage of the devestation from Hurricane Katrina.
I suppose he's referring to the (untrue) claims of tens of thousands of dead in New Orleans, supposedly left behind to die because of the color of their skin. Or the (also untrue) claims by New Orleans' mayor on national television of rapes and murders of women and children in the Superdome. Maybe it's the media's attempt to lay blame for all of New Orleans' mess on President Bush, while ignoring the facts (ooh, how the Left hates those pesky thinks!) that the mayor and Louisiana's Governor failed to act in a timely fashion to save their own people.
Then we get this quote...
Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest. It is to "glue eyeballs to the screen" in order to build ratings and sell advertising. If you have any doubt, just look at what's on: The Robert Blake trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various celebrity couplings, and on and on and on.I have to agree with the VP here. But, here's the thing... Most of the conservative people I know, whether family, friends or through work, couldn't care less about these things. Celebrity goings on, triels, etc. are of little or no interest to most of us. (I'm speaking for my own little circle now, not generalizing for everyone). Most of the people I know who talked about Blake, Laci, Jacko, Aruba, etc. are the same folks I know who read People Magazine, watch Entertainment Tonight and watch or tape soap operas.
...it is television delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave risk.Allrighty, then...
Of course, I'm referring to to Cindy Sheehan. Here's a quote from her latest posting at Huffingtonpost.com
The war machine and the people who serve it in our government are getting a little afraid themselves of not being able to keep the industrial military complex rolling in the bloody dough, so George and friends have come up with a new enemy whose atrocities also can't be contained to borders and that doesn't wear a national uniform: The Bird Flu... Our new enemy of the state will be Birds who may be ill and we shall be very afraid every time we sneeze and pray that our government saves us from more imaginary threats.It could be funny watching to see what idiotic ramblings she comes up with next, if the woman herself weren't so pathetically disturbed. She needs help. Psychological help. Grief counseling. Something. Instead, the moonbats of the extreme Left are using her as a poster child for their causes. Sadly, the media is eating it up. Cindy is a victim of their games, but she's apparently too far gone to realize it.
Everything has gone about as well as we expected with the move. Last Friday, in the course of four rainy miserable hours, we moved from the old place to our new house. All the painting and preliminary work went well, with my father-in-law doing a fantastic job of getting hte house ready. The only issues we had were with utilities. We were without internet from before the move until sometime Sunday, hence no updates. We do have about 30 boxes in the house, with another 30-40 in the garage, but it's totally liveable now.
The move into the house has officially begun. My father-in-law is getting the painting inside finished, and we've started moving things from the old place to the new one. We did have a nasty little surprise the first time we opened the mailbox.
Nobody thinks twice about a mailbox. You either like the way it looks, or you don't. In this case, we did. So we didn't give it any more thought. Until we opened the blasted thing. A nice flowering vine was growing up around the post. It looked great, except that the vine had grown into the mailbox itself. Lots of vine tangled inside the box. Not a problem. But inside the box, with the vine, about a dozen big ugly cockroaches. Urgh! I absolutely detest these bugs, no the mailbox, it's post, and the ground around it are going to be drenched in some highly potent roach death liquid. They'll be sterile for years! The pretty vine around the mailbox... already gone. I pulled it, and the roach or two that were on it, and they've been disposed of.
I'm just glad I found them before my wife...
